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Bandit: A Daughter's Memoir
“Raw, poetic and compulsively readable. In Molly Brodak’s dazzling memoir, Bandit, her eye is so honest, I found myself nodding like I was agreeing with her, sometimes cringing at what she sustained, and laughing—often. I can’t wait to buy a copy for everyone I know.”—Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help
In the summer of 1994, when Molly Brodak was thirteen years old, her father robbed eleven banks, until the police finally caught up with him while he was sitting at a bar drinking beer, a bag of stolen money plainly visible in the backseat of his parked car. Dubbed the “Mario Brothers Bandit” by the FBI, he served seven years in prison and was released, only to rob another bank several years later and end up back behind bars.
In her powerful, provocative debut memoir, Bandit, Molly Brodak recounts her childhood and attempts to make sense of her complicated relationship with her father, a man she only half knew. At some angles he was a normal father: there was a job at the GM factory, a house with a yard, birthday treats for Molly and her sister. But there were darker glimmers, too—another wife he never mentioned to her mother, late-night rages directed at the TV, the red Corvette that suddenly appeared in the driveway, a gift for her sister. Growing up with this larger-than-life, mercurial man, Brodak’s strategy was to “get small” and stay out of the way. In Bandit, she unearths and reckons with her childhood memories and the fracturing impact her father had on their family—and in the process attempts to make peace with the parts of herself that she inherited from this bewildering, beguiling man.
Written in precise, spellbinding prose, Bandit is a stunning, gut-punching story of family and memory, of the tragic fallibility of the stories we tell ourselves, and of the contours of a father’s responsibility for his children.
In the summer of 1994, when Molly Brodak was thirteen years old, her father robbed eleven banks, until the police finally caught up with him while he was sitting at a bar drinking beer, a bag of stolen money plainly visible in the backseat of his parked car. Dubbed the “Mario Brothers Bandit” by the FBI, he served seven years in prison and was released, only to rob another bank several years later and end up back behind bars.
In her powerful, provocative debut memoir, Bandit, Molly Brodak recounts her childhood and attempts to make sense of her complicated relationship with her father, a man she only half knew. At some angles he was a normal father: there was a job at the GM factory, a house with a yard, birthday treats for Molly and her sister. But there were darker glimmers, too—another wife he never mentioned to her mother, late-night rages directed at the TV, the red Corvette that suddenly appeared in the driveway, a gift for her sister. Growing up with this larger-than-life, mercurial man, Brodak’s strategy was to “get small” and stay out of the way. In Bandit, she unearths and reckons with her childhood memories and the fracturing impact her father had on their family—and in the process attempts to make peace with the parts of herself that she inherited from this bewildering, beguiling man.
Written in precise, spellbinding prose, Bandit is a stunning, gut-punching story of family and memory, of the tragic fallibility of the stories we tell ourselves, and of the contours of a father’s responsibility for his children.
8 pages, Audiobook
First published October 4, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 174 reviews
March 8, 2021
Edit: 8th of March 2021
I'm absolutely devastated to learn that Molly Brodak has committed suicide. This might seem like a strange or overblown thing to say for someone who didn't know her personally, but her writing resonated with me in ways I can barely even begin to explain. I feel as though I knew a part of her, however small that might be. I'd like to share Molly, written by her husband, Blake Butler.
Original Review
When I wrote my review for Sixty Years a Nurse and said that what makes or breaks a memoir is not so much what the author has to say but how skilfully they say it, this book is what I meant. Molly Brodak's writing is eloquent and profound. It's entirely clear that she's a poet.
Her story is, of course, interesting, but you shouldn't pick it up expecting an action packed ride. Bandit is less blow by blow account and more therapeutic journey - her search for insight about her father and about herself. This was an emotional read for me. Without going into great detail, I've spent a lot of time in and out of therapy trying to understand my parents (and myself, of course!) and it was quite something to see someone else undertaking a similar journey on the page.
Don't be daunted by Bandit's eighty-two chapters. Most are only a few pages long and almost every page strikes home in some way. I'd list some of the best quotes, but I'm afraid I'd have to list half the book.
I'm absolutely devastated to learn that Molly Brodak has committed suicide. This might seem like a strange or overblown thing to say for someone who didn't know her personally, but her writing resonated with me in ways I can barely even begin to explain. I feel as though I knew a part of her, however small that might be. I'd like to share Molly, written by her husband, Blake Butler.
Original Review
When I wrote my review for Sixty Years a Nurse and said that what makes or breaks a memoir is not so much what the author has to say but how skilfully they say it, this book is what I meant. Molly Brodak's writing is eloquent and profound. It's entirely clear that she's a poet.
Her story is, of course, interesting, but you shouldn't pick it up expecting an action packed ride. Bandit is less blow by blow account and more therapeutic journey - her search for insight about her father and about herself. This was an emotional read for me. Without going into great detail, I've spent a lot of time in and out of therapy trying to understand my parents (and myself, of course!) and it was quite something to see someone else undertaking a similar journey on the page.
Don't be daunted by Bandit's eighty-two chapters. Most are only a few pages long and almost every page strikes home in some way. I'd list some of the best quotes, but I'm afraid I'd have to list half the book.
March 12, 2020
Molly's father was the eponymous bandit, but so was she, and she's gone now, passed away, escaped down to the quick of herself and away now from that too. O, Molly—you will be so so missed.
December 14, 2020
This book is like a deep dive into freezing waters. It's shocking, clarifying, invigorating, upsetting.
I picked up this book because of an essay that Molly's husband wrote about her suicide earlier this year. His essay left me breathless. Not the breathlessness of seeing a vast and untouched expanse of nature. No, the breathlessness of struggling to get off the street after getting punched in the stomach, the gravel digging into your hands as you do.
Molly had a tragic life. She also had the bravery to look at her life with an unflinching eye. One of the things she discusses in this book is how she distrusted stories. "the story is the most dangerous thing there is. Because the way we talk about what happened becomes what happened"
I think that a big part of what makes this book so special is that Molly was a poet first and foremost. She didn't seem to see herself as an author who wrote poetry but a poet who, against her better judgement, wrote a book.
Bandit is a memoir about the troubled life of a girl who grew into a poet that distrusts stories. It's not a narrative as much as it is a collection of tightly wound sentences concerning the facts and insights of her life.
I'm very glad I read this book. I feel like I understand, just a little bit more, about what it means to be human, what it means to live. What it means to live with pain and longing and anger. Things that we all experience, but that Molly seems to have felt more acutely than most.
I picked up this book because of an essay that Molly's husband wrote about her suicide earlier this year. His essay left me breathless. Not the breathlessness of seeing a vast and untouched expanse of nature. No, the breathlessness of struggling to get off the street after getting punched in the stomach, the gravel digging into your hands as you do.
Molly had a tragic life. She also had the bravery to look at her life with an unflinching eye. One of the things she discusses in this book is how she distrusted stories. "the story is the most dangerous thing there is. Because the way we talk about what happened becomes what happened"
I think that a big part of what makes this book so special is that Molly was a poet first and foremost. She didn't seem to see herself as an author who wrote poetry but a poet who, against her better judgement, wrote a book.
Bandit is a memoir about the troubled life of a girl who grew into a poet that distrusts stories. It's not a narrative as much as it is a collection of tightly wound sentences concerning the facts and insights of her life.
I'm very glad I read this book. I feel like I understand, just a little bit more, about what it means to be human, what it means to live. What it means to live with pain and longing and anger. Things that we all experience, but that Molly seems to have felt more acutely than most.
March 15, 2020
My heart is absolutely crushed at the news of Molly Brodak's passing. I was told at the check out counter while buying this book, and her first book of poems. Her memoir is poetic - inspiring - and heart-wrenching. It is about a woman who is tethered to her father despite both of their mistakes in life. Most importantly, it is about family, and how the idea prevails even when the past seems to cloud out our judgments of others. She is brutally honest, about her father, herself, and the events of her life. I am terribly sad that we may not be able to see her lovely words on the page again. I hope you read this and discover Brodak's brilliance.
July 18, 2020
"I assumed the danger had passed. The crimes were done, Dad's influence on us was gone—what was left? What is always left: the story. And the story is the most dangerous thing there is."
I hate the way I discovered this book: through the author's obituary. But I loved and appreciated this book. Molly Brodak wrote with searing intention about her father, who robbed multiple banks in 1994 and 2009; her older sister, who lived with their father until his first arrest and tried her hardest to still support him even after being convicted; her mother, who tried to get away from him years before the robberies; and for herself, who was once a young child who never felt entirely comfortable with her father, and then became an adult trying to untangle his lies into a reason for why her family was the way it was. Her prose is poetic, but still honest. And as someone who has their own struggles with their father's actions and legacy, this felt like a necessary read.
It is clear from this book and the tributes that I've read that Molly Brodak was an extraordinary person. When I finished Bandit, it was difficult not to ache for her mother, sister and partner. There isn't anything I can say about her death that doesn't feel disingenuous, but I truly am so grateful to have read this book. In a way, I've been searching for it for a while.
I hate the way I discovered this book: through the author's obituary. But I loved and appreciated this book. Molly Brodak wrote with searing intention about her father, who robbed multiple banks in 1994 and 2009; her older sister, who lived with their father until his first arrest and tried her hardest to still support him even after being convicted; her mother, who tried to get away from him years before the robberies; and for herself, who was once a young child who never felt entirely comfortable with her father, and then became an adult trying to untangle his lies into a reason for why her family was the way it was. Her prose is poetic, but still honest. And as someone who has their own struggles with their father's actions and legacy, this felt like a necessary read.
It is clear from this book and the tributes that I've read that Molly Brodak was an extraordinary person. When I finished Bandit, it was difficult not to ache for her mother, sister and partner. There isn't anything I can say about her death that doesn't feel disingenuous, but I truly am so grateful to have read this book. In a way, I've been searching for it for a while.
November 7, 2016
Amazing, heartbreaking examination of what it's like to be a daughter of a selfish man. I found myself thinking of Nabokov and Proust as I read. So philosophic and true and human.
September 24, 2017
Bandit was a pleasant read, focusing on the author's life memories and the feelings she felt growing up with a father who went to prison for robbing banks. It seemed really cathartic and overall I enjoyed hearing about her life. The audiobook narrator did not do this book justice though - her reading felt overdramatic and too intense. The narrator read it as if Brodak is angry and incredulous... I felt Brodak wanted to convey feelings that were more hazy, bittersweet, and thoughtful.
July 8, 2020
Molly Brodak’s exceptional new memoir, Bandit, is framed by the story of her father, whose many mistakes in life culminate with an infamous bank robbing spree in Michigan. While her father’s story could easily take up a book of its own, the real reason Bandit succeeds is because Brodak keeps the story close to herself. It’s a memoir, after all. Still, her father, mostly estranged from the whole family, takes up his fair share of text. He’s an outsized figure in almost every way. I would argue, however, that the memoir is Molly Brodak’s attempt to make the man life-sized. These attempts never turn into typed psychotherapy, though. There is catharsis, to be sure, but Brodak brings thoughtfulness and intellect to the questions she seeks to answer.
It’s this quest for understanding, the endless attempts to make sense of what was in many ways was a senseless past, that make the memoir unique. She has researched not just her past and her father’s and her family’s, but also the psychology behind gambling addiction and the history of the now-derelict Detroit neighborhood where her father first lived when he came to America as a small child. She confesses her own phase of shoplifting. She visits her father, and writes him, and maintains some small connection to him even while all the rest of their family has necessarily cut him off.
This memoir is a search, and the reward for the reader comes from being invited to take part in it. Brodak won’t offer you any solid answers, except to illustrate that when it comes to her father’s life—and his is an extreme example of life in general—no answer will ever be satisfactory. And that, in the end, is OK.
It’s this quest for understanding, the endless attempts to make sense of what was in many ways was a senseless past, that make the memoir unique. She has researched not just her past and her father’s and her family’s, but also the psychology behind gambling addiction and the history of the now-derelict Detroit neighborhood where her father first lived when he came to America as a small child. She confesses her own phase of shoplifting. She visits her father, and writes him, and maintains some small connection to him even while all the rest of their family has necessarily cut him off.
This memoir is a search, and the reward for the reader comes from being invited to take part in it. Brodak won’t offer you any solid answers, except to illustrate that when it comes to her father’s life—and his is an extreme example of life in general—no answer will ever be satisfactory. And that, in the end, is OK.
April 19, 2021
Molly Brodak's BANDIT, a memoir focused on Brodak's fraught relationship with her borderline sociopath bank robber father, is a book that defies categorization and cliché. It's raw, unflinching, and deeply poetic — an unforgettable story written by a bold emerging author.
March 18, 2021
not all memoirs can achieve this level of emotional clarity and complex, poetic telling, yet accessibly readable. never once did this story feel showy or cheesy or tied-up neatly in a way some mainstream memoirs do, even when describing traumatic life events and trying to understand the acts of her bank-robber father. a true accomplishment of investigating and observation. although the parents in this story are complicated and deeply flawed, molly writes them here with humility and forgiveness that often moved me to tears. her writing of her childhood perspective is like none other i have ever read. a child's perspective is respected, sacred, here. i will remember this book forever, mostly for the open spaces of memories: the amish camp for troubled kids, walking through the rubble of her dad's abandoned church and school in a neighborhood of detroit. the way molly describes the interior life. i know molly brodak is no longer with us, and i believe this book was an intentional parting gift, a gift that i hope more people find. i think of the passage of the book where she describes sinking into the earth as she laid in the grass, feeling true peace, alone at last with a deep knowing of endless material.
September 23, 2017
"She went toward her own problems with an intense bravery and intelligence that humbles me, even now. She specialized in them, in order to help others." Brodak writing about her mother.
I loved this book. Not only does Brodak tell the story of her father in a compassionate way, we learn about her mother's mental illness, Brodak's own battles, and the love she has for her sister.
I randomly found this book on the library shelf and I'm so glad that I did....a wonderful read.
I loved this book. Not only does Brodak tell the story of her father in a compassionate way, we learn about her mother's mental illness, Brodak's own battles, and the love she has for her sister.
I randomly found this book on the library shelf and I'm so glad that I did....a wonderful read.
March 29, 2020
Sad to just now be discovering Brodak's work posthumously and also that her poetry is out of print. This memoir was heartbreaking on many levels.
July 16, 2017
It is rare to have the chance to consider the intimate and often painful experience of those who are impacted by the criminal behavior of a loved one. To offer this honesty and perspective to readers is a gift Ms. Brodak provides in this account of her family's life. With over 65 chapters in just 240 pages, the layout of the story is choppy. Without offering a spoiler, I'll simply add that this book is peppered with a certain aspect of her White privilege and I (also White) struggled to believe her attempt to express acknowledgement and ownership of that privilege given how her actions ultimately play out. The inequity I found reflected therein (due, in part, to my work in the criminal justice system) frustrated and angered me as I read. That said, eliciting emotional engagement from a reader is certainly desirable in my book. Overall, a good read and a bonus in my book that she is a local author (relative to me!), given that she now resides in my adopted hometown of Atlanta. Disclaimer: according to the book, I share at least one mutual acquaintance with Ms. Brodak.
November 10, 2016
This book is a lot about how the narrator feels but there isn't much action that seems to cause it or justify it, we get to here about how she feels, why she thinks she feels that way and how the feeling affects her. Maybe that's fine, but it's really not for me. There is no plot development, no character development. It's a true story, so maybe it's just for catharsis. I can't imagine what a publisher was thinking when they decided to publish it. I wish I hadn't wasted my money on it.
April 7, 2020
Especially in light of the recent sad news concerning the author, the story rings out like a great bell. It is a study of family, pain, psychopathy, and what redemption is or might be. I loved this book.
October 12, 2016
I won this book in the Goodreads giveaway and I loved it. It was a quick and fascinating read.
April 14, 2020
unfortunately found this book shortly after the author passed. this memoir made me cry for many reasons, and i look up to this woman now as a writer and a human being. she will be greatly missed ❤️
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April 25, 2020The poet in Brodak makes this book sing.
September 12, 2018
Part memoir, part sociological analysis, Brodak's writing is whip-smart and self-aware.
While three-quarters of the book describe her life—from childhood to adulthood and the subsequent fallout her father's gambling addiction, crimes, and jail time wreaked upon her family—the remaining quarter attempts to dissect her father's motivations and actions in relation to the man she knew growing up, a man who was equally manipulative and self-serving. However, when writing about her father's gambling addiction and his rationale for committing the robberies (claims of post-Vietnam PTSD and an out-of-body experience), she does not simply speculate or make grand assumptions, but fleshes out her own conjectures using his family history, as well as psychological and sociological theory. It really is amazingly well-researched.
Admittedly, I preferred the first section. The poetry in her writing really shines here, and the content is infinitely more sensational, whereas parts of the last quarter were a bit too didactic. Perhaps it could have done with a substantive edit, wherein the sociological analysis was interspersed throughout the narrative? Nonetheless, it was indeed a fascinating read.
While three-quarters of the book describe her life—from childhood to adulthood and the subsequent fallout her father's gambling addiction, crimes, and jail time wreaked upon her family—the remaining quarter attempts to dissect her father's motivations and actions in relation to the man she knew growing up, a man who was equally manipulative and self-serving. However, when writing about her father's gambling addiction and his rationale for committing the robberies (claims of post-Vietnam PTSD and an out-of-body experience), she does not simply speculate or make grand assumptions, but fleshes out her own conjectures using his family history, as well as psychological and sociological theory. It really is amazingly well-researched.
Admittedly, I preferred the first section. The poetry in her writing really shines here, and the content is infinitely more sensational, whereas parts of the last quarter were a bit too didactic. Perhaps it could have done with a substantive edit, wherein the sociological analysis was interspersed throughout the narrative? Nonetheless, it was indeed a fascinating read.
November 5, 2018
I haven't read many memoirs, but this one's precise language, gripping scenes, and fierce investigation of family, loyalty, honesty, deception, money, gambling, crime, place, and personal history have made me reconsider whether I should read more. The writer's poetic perspective is found more in precise language than flowery language, and it is through her language that she is able to make vivid many contradictory emotions simultaneously -- judgment and mercy, sympathy and anger, making a story that is a critique of story , etc. The overall effect is an intensely honest observation of the world. Personally my favorite part was toward the end when she interrogates what money actually is, what gambling actually is, and how the metaphor of money operates on the gambler's mind. I found this to be unexpectedly climactic in the shape of the book, like a section of striking and complex philosophy bursting out of the narrative. If you like non-fiction books about human behavior (economics, psychology, anthropology, etc), check it out. BANDIT is scattered with many such unexpected but true-ringing insights, and heroically does not over-reduce them. The short chapters and fast-pace also had me blazing through it.
April 2, 2018
A stellar memoir about a gambling addict and bank robbing father and the family he betrayed with his crimes. At once, Molly Brodak has written something incredibly smart and difficult about understanding who we are, who our parents are/were, and what about us is a direct correlation of our parents; additionally, embedded within this heartbreaking collapse of a family is a profound indictment of stories and storytelling and the myth of the outlaw. A hundred years of glorification of the outlaw and it comes down to this: everything they touch turns to shit, and the stories of those left behind are just as important as the perpetuation of the mythological outlaw. With this book, Brodak has ensured that the story is told this time. The criminal is demystified. Nobody is innocent, nobody is the same, in the shadow of bad men. There are also some interesting observations about Detroit.
October 14, 2016
This unique memoir centers around the author's sociopathic gambling addict father who has spent many years in prison for armed robbery. He's a man barely present in his daughter’s life, even when they are physically together. Can we ever know somebody who deliberately hides so much of themselves behind stories and lies? The author also struggles to understand some earlier-life actions on her part that remind her of her father: she tells of shoplifting sprees in college and the obsessively thought out behavior involved in making those thefts possible. Did shoplifting help her understand him better or was she just like her own father: a pathological liar and thief?
February 21, 2023
after learning of Blake Butler's upcoming Molly book, I decided it was finally time to tackle this memoir that has been on my queue on here for some time. I put it off given... well, you know. there's something really bitter and difficult about getting into the work of a person who will not produce any more, ever. but I sat down and I read this, and I'm glad I did. pure chance to have picked this up during a very intense period of alienation in my life, and I feel that she captured that sense brutally well here in a way that has been difficult to cope with.
a talented woman. RIP
a talented woman. RIP
March 21, 2020
This is an absolutely gorgeous book. A penetrating story of a daughter trying to understand her family, particularly her ultimately unknowable father. Accomplished in short, meditative chapters and language carefully wrought with a poets touch. It perhaps stretches too far when toward the end when it stretches for some psychological answers to the question raised and dwells on them too long when those answers fail to fully materialize.
November 12, 2023
I learned about this book by reading a review in Publishers Weekly of the upcoming Molly by Blake Butler.
This was an interesting account from a daughter’s perspective. Molly provided no hint about her own struggles, but she wrote plenty about her parents’ mental health challenges.
I wish for peace for all her loved ones.
October 15, 2016
This is my kind of memoir: a poetic and vulnerable and insightful story of family and the stories we tell about our families. Beautiful, heartbreaking, raw. I can't wait to read it again after I recover from this first read.
January 11, 2023
Wow. Such a phenomenal look into Molly’s upbringing and what made her who she was as an adult. I felt like I was reading Brodak’s journal— real, raw and true feelings put down on paper. Really sad to hear of her passing a few years back— so incredibly heartbreaking
October 10, 2016
This memoir of a bank robbing father is excellent. She writes in such a fresh and easy style about heavy stuff... I just hope that one day I can write as well as she does.
February 15, 2017
Insightful and arresting. Her voice grabbed me right away. This feels like something that needed to be written, a feeling I wish many other things being published right now gave off.
June 15, 2020
In the first chapter she gives all the facts. Then she writes 'Now to tell my story'. It's brilliant and weaves her father's story with her life, her being, her beliefs. Exceptional! READ IT!
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